Irish gravestones

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This page lists and links to an number of sources for gravestone inscriptions and cemetery registers, some rather old and some include very recent graves and burial registers.

Gravestsones and burial records can be useful resources for genealogists. At best memorial inscriptions tell you more about the person concered than their dates; records of people buried together or near each other can give clues about families and burial records often contain other related information such as the deceased's address and occupation and who organised the burial. None of this information is usually available in parish burial records.

There is a hotch-potch of information available from crowd-sourced sites, pay-sites, cemetery managers, publications, libraries and volunteers.

If you know which cemetery you are interested in, a good place to start is John Grenham's county by county listing. There is a section for graveyards under each county with information on whether it has been surveyed. Otherwise you might start with one of the big sites. If you are looking for something older, you might start with the journal for the preservation of memorials of the dead. If looking for someone buried in Dublin, you could try the Dublin City database or Ireland Genealogy Projects.

International sites

• Findagrave. Free/crowdsourced site linked to Ancestry.com. Beware of records that are not for real graves/not data taken from graves. People seem to upload speculative information from their family tree as if it were fact. On the plus side, people often add obituaries etc, which can be very useful.
• Billion graves. Hybrid free/pay site associated with MyHeritage which claims to be more reliable for genealogists than Findagrave.
• Interment.net. Mainly US site with some free Irish information.
• Gravestonephotos.com mainly UK volunteer web site with some coverage of Australia and elsewhere including a little on Ireland.

Irish sites

• Discover ever after. Graveyard management service which runs a database of graves as a byproduct. Based in Derry, it originally covered Tyrone & Armagh and has now expanded to other parts of Ireland and other countries. Star additions are the Deansgrave and Shanganagh cemeteries in County Dublin, apparently made available in conjunction with Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council. You can see both images of the graves and the burial registers and search for the people you are interested in.
• Irishgraveyards.ie. Graveyard survey company which runs a database of graves and graveyards it has surveyed. Based in Castlebar, it covers mainly Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Donegal.
• historicgraves.com. Volunteer graveyard survey organisation, mostly covering Cork, Limerick and Tipperary.
• deceasedonline.com. Mainly UK pay site with some Irish coverage. Appears to be a for-profit company providing pooled cemetery/cremetorium database for UK local authorities.

Irish local authority sites

• Dublin cemeteries trust. Charitable organisation est 1828 running multiple cemeteries around Dublin with c1.5m burial/gravestone records.
• Belfast burial records. Search Belfast City Council's burial records, some from 1869, for free and buy an image of burial records over 75 years old for £1.50.
• Wexford county archives has Wexford municipal burial records 1881-1926 covering four cemeteries, St John's, St Patrick's, St Michael's and St Mary's.
• Dún Laoghaire - Rathdown County Council has burial records for Dean’s Grange and Shanganagh cemeteries, newly improved in conjunction with Discovereverafter (see above). Deans Grange is one of the three large cemeteries in the Dublin area (Mount Jerome and Glasnevin are the others), covering 70 acres of land and hosting graves of more than 70,000 people. The records are searchable and the same search result takes you to the basic details for the grave/people in it supplemented by a map/aerial image, a photo of the grave (usually) and a copy of the original burial register.

Irish genealogy pay sites

• Ancestry Ireland/Ulster historical foundation tombstone database. Requires payment.
• Roots Ireland (subscription site) states that it has almost 500,000 Irish gravestone inscriptions.
• Irish World (formerly Heritage World Ireland?) says that its database includes 'Gravestone inscriptions – over 900 cemeteries for Co. Antrim, Co. Armagh, Co. Derry, Co. Down, Co. Fermanagh and Co. Tyrone.' On application (and for an unspecified payment), one can obtain either an index covering all deaths in the database or individual gravestone inscriptions. In conjunction with the Genealogical Publishing co of Baltimore, it has published a book 'Irish gravestone inscriptions : a guide to sources in Ulster' (William O'Kane & Eoin Kerr, editors, Baltimore, Maryland : Genealogical Publishing Company, c1999) which is also available to browse on Ancestry. However, the publication only includes a brief description of the nine counties of Ulster and a list for each county of the cemeteries included in the survey, with the religious denomination and a reference code for each.
• The Genealogical Society of Ireland has some publications on memorial inscriptions, mostly covering Deansgrange cemetery in Dublin. These are available on Findmypast which also adds some GSI data on cemeteries in Louth, Meath and Wicklow.
• Kabristan archives (founded by Irish genealogist Eileen Hewson) rather idiosyncratically records memorial inscriptions in Ireland, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Falkland Islands. Results are for sale from their web site. The Irish collection with some 44,000 memorial inscriptions is also on FindmyPast.
• The North of Ireland Family History Society has a collection of memorial inscriptions available for members to review in their library and a look-up service for members to use remotely. There are some indexes on line, including an index to memorial inscriptions in genealogical journals. Some tombstone inscriptions are publicly available on the uploads section of the website, eg here. There may be more if you navigate around.
• FindmyPast has Donegal cemetery records, Fermanagh cemetery records, Roscommon - Kiltullagh cemetery records, Tyrone cemetry records, Derry/Londonderry cemetery records, Dublin City cemeteries/burials, Leitrim cemetery records, Wicklow cemetery records, Ireland memorial inscriptions and Memorials of the Dead, Galway and Mayo, (most including gravestone inscriptions, some with photos) (and the GSI's, Kabristan's, From Ireland's and Brian Cantwell's publications - see above and below). Most of the FMP datasets should come up in a search for 'Parish Burials', but annoyingly one or two are under 'Civil deaths and burials', or you can use this search which just includes the sources concerned. NB, that some of the data sets return blank rows in the search results, but the underlying information is there in a .pdf file when you open it.

Publications

• Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead, Ireland - 1888-1938. 1888-1934 available on FamilySearch (no OCR, not searchable). 1888-1916 available on archive.org (with OCR, searchable). Full Index of entries for County Clare c/o Clare Library. The main content was gravestone transcriptions, but many entries included more, such as family information, pedigrees, coats of arms and sometimes wills. In time the journal published separate sections on funeral entries and parish registers (although the funeral entries are unfortuntely not available on line.) More explanation and links to the tables of contents/indices of individual volumes and various finding aids on web site memsdead and in particular its directory.
• The Casey Collection has various cemetery and tombstone listings for the province of Munster, in particular Nohoval Cemetery and Church of St. Finian, Tombstone Inscriptions: Clonfert, Nohovaldaly, Drishane, Kilcummin, Cullen, Kilmeen & Dromtariffe, Tombstone Records: Inchigeela, Gongane, Clondrohid, Kilnamartyra, Cloyne, St. Gobnaits, Ballyvourney, Coolea, Castlemagner, Brosna, Rathmore, Barraduff, Glenfesk, Aghadoe, Killeentierna, Ardcrone, Currens, Castleisland, Kilbannivane, Kilcummin, Kilanare, Aglish, Kilsarcon, Muckross Abbey, Killarney, and Fossa, Tombstone Inscriptions: Kilcorney, Lyre, Clonmeen, Banteer, and Kilcorcoran, Diocese of Cloyne, Tombstone Inscriptions: Aghinagh, Tralee, Macroom & Maclongeigh, Tombstone Inscriptions Cork: Liscarroll, Dromina, Churchtown, Kilgrogan, Doneraile, Buttevant, Templemary, Mourne Abbey, Coachford, Ballinamona, Charleville, Tombstone Inscriptions Kerry: Tralee, Churchill, Spa, St. Johns, Killorglin, Ballymacelligott, O'Brennan, Nohoval, Ballybunion, Listowell, Duagh, Tombstone Inscriptions Limerick: Mount Collins, Abbeyfeale, Mallow, Plaque Inscriptions in Church, Tombstone Inscriptions: Clonfert, Drishane, Dromtariffe, Kilmeen, Kilcorney, Clonmeen,Lyree, Banteer, Castlemagner, Kilbrin & Ballyvourney, Memorials of the Dead,
• Brian Cantwell's memorials of the dead (11 volumes) include 24,392 memorials and 60,790 names from graves dating before 1880, mainly in Wicklow and Wexford. There are available on CD from Eneclann or by subscription/per item payment at FindmyPast.
• The Irish Genealogical Research Society has published two large volumes of Tombstone Inscriptions. So far as I can tell, they will have to be consulted in a library.
• Historical Handbook to Historical Monuments at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Rev Alexander Leeper, DD, Hodges, Foster, & Figgis, Dublin, 1878.
• Memorial Slabs of Clonmacnois, King's County : with an appendix on the materials for a history of the monastery. Robert Alexander Stewart MacAlister, University Press, Dublin, 1909.
• Inscriptions on the monuments, mural tablets, &c at present existing in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin : the names (so far as they have been ascertained) of persons buried within that church, but of whom no monumental records exist, to which are appended brief annals of the Cathedral from the foundation to the present time, with notes and observations / by the Rev. John Finlayson, John Finlayson, Hodges, Foster & Figgis, Dublin, 1878

There are undoubtedly many, many more. Many tombstone inscriptions are also listed in journals of genealogical or local history societies described here. The North of Ireland Family History Society has an index (not complete, I think) to memorial inscriptions in Irish genealogical journals. Unfortunately most of the journals concerned are not available free on line. NIFHS members can get a look-up of the inscriptions.

Various free resources

• From Ireland. Free resource with 70,000 gravestone listings, 20,000 of which include photographs, (also on FindmyPast and Ancestry).
• Ireland Genealogy Projects headstone project links to county archive pages now with 170,000 gravestone linkings from different sources and with differing degrees of detail. In particular, IGP has a vast collection of headstones and burial records for Dublin.
• Skibbereen heritage - west Cork graveyards
• County Louth tombstone inscriptions
• County Clare Library graveyard inscriptions
• Limerick Archives Mount St Lawrence cemetery database
• Cork archives burial records
• Dublin City Databases includes among other things a graveyards directory (including information on whether they have been surveyed, where burial registers might be held and where transcriptions appear in the journal for preservation of memorials for the dead) and a cemetery burial register search. See also Ireland Genealogy Projects above.
• Enfield Graveyards has a searchable database of graveyards in Meath and Kildare with photos and transcriptions of individual graves
• Waterford burial records and monumental inscriptions includes a description and links to other sources as well as a link to Waterford Library's grave record database.
• Tipperary studies gravestone inscriptions detailed listing of monumental inscriptions apparently covering most of the county, by the Ormond History Society and others.
• Headstone inscriptions from Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Waterford.
• Kilkenny Gravestone Inscriptions (excellent web site from Kilkenny Archeological Society with links to pages for surveys of individual graveyards or information on other sources).
• Burial in County Sligo. Unfortunately, the original site (hosted by Rootsweb) is no longer available. There are some copies of it on the Wayback machine but these seem mainly to have captured the intro pages and not the grave details. I have not found the site re-located anywhere else.
• FamilySearch has an enormous collection of burial records from Dublin's Mount Jerome cemetery, but unfortunately only for visitors to Family History Centers. (Ireland Genealogy Projects also has Mount Jerome Cemetery, possibly the same collection.)
• County Tyrone.com has gravestone inscriptions and photos along with a lot of other content and is now expanding to cover the other eight counties of Ulster.
• kerryburials.com has gravestone images from graveyards in Kerry and Cork. Link above no longer seems to work. Some images at the wayback machine.
• kerrylaburials run by Kerry County Council and other local authorities has the objective of scanning the burial records for 140 cemeteries that the authorities collectively run. The results are available in a searchable database. There are no grave photographs or tombstone inscriptions.
• Maghera Genealogy's graveyards section with tombstone inscriptions from nine graveyards in the south Derry/Londonderry area.
• Bann Valley Genealogy lists the churches in the area with separate pages for many of them including, although not always, tombstone inscriptions.
• Six Towns History & Heritage (co Derry/Londonderry) has transcriptions for St Patrick's Churchyard
• Website Fáilte Romhat has a section on cemetery transcriptions/images.
• North Wexford Historical Society has a searchable database with 3000 headstones from 14 graveyards in north Wexford.
• Meath Libraries advertises a graveyard survey although it was not yet live when I checked.
• Lurgan Ancestry has this page of gravestone images and transcriptions.

Other sites linking to Irish memorial inscriptions

• John Grenham gravestone inscriptions for a listing of what is available. Also use his listings of individual graveyards by county to see whether they have been surveyed and if so where published.
• FamilySearch wiki on Irish cemeteries